As is known, the effect of spontaneous orientation of a gyroscopic compass is achieved by elastically forcing the gyroscopic axis to lie in a horizontal plane, and this may be obtained by a pendular or an antipendular system. The use of such an antipendular system is advantageous because it eliminates or attenuates the disturbances affecting the behavior of the compass due to the accelerations of the vehicle on which it is installed, but it presents the drawback of being intrinsically unstable and therefore of causing, when the gyroscope is inactive, a departure of the gyroscopic axis from its normal horizontal attitude. If not corrected, this phenomenon leads to a great lengthening of the activation times of the compass, and thus of the period of time needed for the spontaneous positioning of the gyroscopic axis, with the gyroscope activated, in a horizontal plane and with the correct orientation therein.
In order to reduce these activation times, recourse is usually had to the installation of an inclination detector, such as an accelerometer or an electrolytic level, located with its longitudinal axis parallel to the spin axis (i.e. the axis of rotation of the gyroscopic mass) of the gyroscope, so as to detect any rotation around the tilt axis, and thus any displacement of the gyroscope axis with respect to the horizontal plane. The signal of this inclination detector is then amplified and used to pilot a correcting device, such as a linear torque generator placed on the tilt ring and juxtaposed with the gyrosphere shell, capable of applying to the gyroscope a torque around the azimuth axis, so as to cause a precession around the tilt axis until the achievement of the leveled horizontal position. A system of this kind is rather complex and expensive and is subject to malfunction due to the use of sophisticated components delicate to install.